Supercharge Your Flow
Tips and Tricks for improving RStudio IDE Development Efficiency
Mayank Agrawal
Senior R developer Consultant I
ProCogia
Tuesday, August 1, 2023
Hello, There
This presentation will show you examples of what you can do with RStudio IDE, including:
- RStudio Projects
- Personalizing your IDE
- Navigating Views
- Keyboard Shortcuts for different development flows
- Searching variables in a broader context
- Code Beautification Options
- Code Folding and Run Options
- Code Comments Outline Setup
- History of previous commands used
- …and much more
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RStudio Projects
RStudio projects make it straightforward to divide your work into multiple contexts, each with their own working directory, workspace, history, and source documents.
Why should I use it?
Isolates your development environment.
Relative path referencing for your project files.
Helps setup project package management via renv or packrat
Segregate development flow and context.
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How to create a new RStudio Project?
Use your RStudio IDE Toolbar:
File –> New Project –> (Choose) New Directory/Existing Directory/Version Control
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Personalize your RStudio IDE
Options
The available options for the RStudio IDE are accessible from the Options dialog - Tools > Global Options menu.
- General R Options — Default CRAN mirror, initial working directory, workspace and history behavior.
- Source Code Editing — Enable/disable line numbers, selected word and line highlighting, soft-wrapping for R files, paren matching, right margin display, and console syntax highlighting; configure tab spacing; set default text encoding.
- Appearance and Themes — Specify font size and visual theme for the console and source editor.
- Pane Layout — Locations of console, source editor, and tab panes; set which tabs are included in each pane.
- Packages — Set default CRAN repository and specify package development options.
- Spelling — Choose main dictionary language and specify spell checking options.
- Git/SVN — Configure locations of Git and Svn binaries and create and/or view SSH RSA keys.
- Publishing — Enable publishing apps and documents from IDE. Set account.
Navigating your RStudio IDE
Navigate between Window Panes
Knowing how to toggle between panes without touching your mouse to move your cursor will help save time and improve your workflow. Use the following shortcuts to switch between panes seamlessly (Mac/Windows):
Control/Ctrl + 1: Source editor (your script)
Control/Ctrl + 2: Console
Control/Ctrl + 3: Help
Control/Ctrl + 4: History
Control/Ctrl + 5: Files
Control/Ctrl + 6: Plots
Control/Ctrl + 7: Packages
Control/Ctrl + 8: Environment
Control/Ctrl + 9: Viewer
Single Pane View
If you prefer to only have one pane in view at a time, add Shift to any of the previous commands to maximize the pane. Use the following shortcuts to bring a panes into primary focus seamlessly (Mac/Windows):
Control/Ctrl + Shift + 1: Source editor (your script) pane only
Control/Ctrl + Shift + 2: Console pane only
Control/Ctrl + Shift + 3: Help pane only
Control/Ctrl + Shift + 4: History pane only
Control/Ctrl + Shift + 5: Files pane only
Control/Ctrl + Shift + 6: Plots pane only
Control/Ctrl + Shift + 7: Packages pane only
Control/Ctrl + Shift + 8: Environment pane only
Control/Ctrl + Shift + 9: Viewer pane only
The Classic Four Pane View
Wait! How do I go back to the classic four-pane view?
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Control/Ctrl + Shift + 0 (Mac/Windows): Four-pane RStudio IDE View
Keyboard Shortcuts
RStudio provides dozens of useful shortcuts that you can access through the menu at the top:
Tools > Keyboard Shortcuts Help.
Console
| Shift focus of cursor to Console |
Ctrl + 2 |
Control + 2 |
| Clear Console |
Ctrl + L |
Control + L |
| Move Cursor to beginning of a line |
Home |
Cmd + Left |
| Move Cursor to end of a line |
End |
Cmd + Right |
| Move Cursor to start/end of a word |
Alt + Left/Rigth |
Option + Left/Right |
| Navigate command history |
Up/Down |
Up/Down |
| Pop-up Command history |
Ctrl + Up |
Cmd + Up |
Source Scripts
| Toggle document outline |
Ctrl + Shift + O |
Cmd + Shift + O |
| Clear Console |
Ctrl + L |
Control + L |
| New R Script |
Ctrl + Shift + N |
Cmd + Shift + N |
| Save active document |
Ctrl + S |
Cmd + S |
| Save all documents |
Ctrl + Alt + S |
Cmd + Option + S |
| Close active document |
Ctrl + W |
Cmd + W |
| Close all open documents |
Ctrl + Shift + W |
Cmd + Shift + W |
| Knit and Preview Document (knitr) |
Ctrl + Shift + K |
Cmd + Shift + K |
| Insert Chunk |
Ctrl + Alt + I |
Cmd + Option + I |
Find
| Find and Replace |
Ctrl + F |
Cmd + F |
| Find in Files |
Ctrl + Shift + F |
Cmd + Shift + F |
Insert
Insert Assignment Operator (<-) |
Alt + - (hyphen/minus) |
Option + - (hyphen/minus) |
Insert Pipe Operator (%>%) |
Ctrl + Shift + M |
Cmd + Shift + M |
Code
| Re-indent lines |
Ctrl + I |
Cmd + I |
| Comment/un-comment current line/selection |
Ctrl + Shift + C |
Cmd + Shift + C |
| Reformat Selection |
Ctrl + Shift + A |
Cmd + Shift + A |
| Move Lines Up/Down |
Alt + Up/Down |
Option + Up/Down |
| Copy Lines Up/Down |
Shift + Alt + Up/Down |
Cmd + Option + Up/Down |
| Jump to Matching Brace/Parenthesis |
Ctrl + P |
Control + P |
| Add Cursor Above/Below Current Cursor |
Ctrl + Alt + Up/Down |
Control + Option + Up/Down |
| (Alternate) Add Cursor via drag |
Alt + drag mouse pointer |
Option + drag mouse pointer |
| Delete Current Line |
Ctrl + D |
Cmd + D |
| Insert Roxygen Skeleton |
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + R |
Cmd + Option + Shift + R |
| Attempt Code Completion |
Tab or Ctrl + Space |
Tab or Cmd + Space |
Code Sections
| Run current line/selection |
Ctrl + Enter |
Cmd + Return |
| Run current document |
Ctrl + Alt + R |
Cmd + Option + R |
| Send current line/selection to terminal |
Ctrl + Alt + Enter |
Cmd + Option + Return |
| Fold Selected |
Alt + L |
Cmd +``Option + L |
| Unfold Selected |
Shift + Alt + L |
Cmd + Shift + Option + L |
| Fold All |
Alt + O |
Cmd + Option + O |
| Unfold All |
Shift + Alt + O |
Cmd + Shift + Option + O |
Tabs
| Switch to tab |
Ctrl + Shift +. [period] |
Control + Shift + . [period] |
| Next tab (desktop) |
Ctrl + Tab |
Control + Tab |
| Previous tab (desktop) |
Ctrl + Shift + Tab |
Control + Shift + Tab |
| (Alternate) Shift between tabs left/right |
Ctrl + Alt + left/right |
Control + Option + left/right |
| Next tab (Workbench) |
Ctrl + F12 |
Control + F12 |
| Previous tab (Workbench) |
Ctrl + F11 |
Control + F11 |
Terminal
| Move Focus to Terminal |
Alt + Shift + M |
Shift + Option + M |
| New Terminal |
Alt + Shift + R |
Shift + Option + R |
Session
| Restart R session |
Ctrl + Shift + 0 |
Cmd + Shift + 0 |
References - Shiny and Quarto
